ThinkHouse Foundations held a webinar on 7 December 2023 during COP28, the annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, this year taking place in Dubai between Thursday 30 November and Tuesday 12 December. Our panel featured international environmental law experts who discussed what the conference is all about, what is expected to result from the two week conference and what this means for your organisation.
Our panel was moderated by Nick Harding, co-chair of ThinkHouse Foundations and an environmental lawyer based in Gowling WLG's London office. Nick provides clients with advice on environmental regulatory matters, such as waste management, environmental permits, greenhouse gas emissions and contaminated land issues, as well as providing environmental transactional support to the firm's corporate, real estate and projects teams. Nick is also an active participant in the firm's ESG team and regularly advises clients in relation to corporate reporting, sustainability and biodiversity issues.
Transcript
Nick Harding: So hi everyone. Welcome to an extra special ThinkHouse Foundations webinar discussing COP28. Some of you may recognise me as the co-chair of ThinkHouse Foundations but I am also a senior associate in the Environment Team in London.
I am pleased to be joined today by two of my Gowling colleagues, Isabella Parkes from the International Projects & Infrastructure Team in Dubai and Graham Reeder from the Environment Team in Toronto. I am also joined today by Maram Salaheldin, an Environmental Attorney based in the Washington DC office of the law firm Clark Hill.
During the webinar please feel free to submit any questions you may have for our panellists on the Q&A function and we will aim to get through as many as possible either during the webinar or at the end. If we are unable to get through all of them we will happily follow up with you after the webinar.
So COP28 is the 28th annual meeting of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Every year delegates from the nations who are part of this convention meet to discuss progress on tackling climate change and ambitions for the future including what needs to be done to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.
Two years ago global leaders ascended on the UK for COP26 in Glasgow and last year's COP27 was hosted by Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Bella, you are based in Dubai and you have been attending COP in the past week so tell us a bit about what it has been like and what the buzz in Dubai is right now.
Isabella Parkes: Hello for everyone listening, first of all I just want to thank you Nick for having me here on the panel. Being at COP this week has been very very busy and it has been electric honestly, it has been a real experience and I am glad I am here to talk about it with you all today.
So day one at COP we, I was not there personally as it was only the blues end so political parties talking about the strong messaging coming from Dr Sultan Al Jaber and what we kind of saw coming out of COP27 in Egypt. There was a big talk of the loss of damage fund and how that is going to be addressed in the following days and then day two we saw all the political leaders arrive for the conference of parties. We saw the UAE come in and say that they have invested already US$100 billion in renewable energy and they are saying that they are going to invest another US$130 billion in the next seven years.
We also saw King Charles' speech which was a massive call for collaboration for ambition and for humanity to come together and create some real change. We also saw the President of Brazil who they will be hosting COP30 and there was a really passionate speech calling for more implementation, basically moving past drafting of treaties. I think everyone, what I have really noticed, is everyone is getting very frustrated with all of these treaties being drafted and all of these agreements being made and declarations but not really much action yet considering we are now at the 28th COP, so there has been a real drive for action.
Day three there was a lot on fossil fuels and the removal of, or the reduction of fossil fuels and there was also a massive push for renewable energy. I know 118 countries signed a declaration, I think now that it has gone from 118 to, I think almost 130 countries, I could be wrong, it could be even more than that now, to double the global average of renewable energy projects going on in the world and the COP presidency also announced another billion dollars in financing commitments for climate and health.
There was also further calls for action in draft text of the global stocktake, for indigenous person and women and the youth also to put their thoughts forward.
And then day four was my first day when the Green Zone opened. I was very very excited to get there and see what was going on and the first round of the negotiations of the global stocktake were concluded on day four. Obviously we have seen over the last few days that negotiations keep continuing so we cannot say, you know, that they have come to a close just yet.
I went to a very interesting five aside chat on the importance of ensuring that the climate finance is distributed equitably for those that most need it, so you know, not just the global north but, you know, countries in the global south that really need that investment to make sure that they are meeting their climate targets.
Day five I saw a lot of collaboration in terms of meaningful change, you know, working together, sharing experiences and making sure that someone who has gone through a project or like a renewable energy project is not keeping those experiences to themselves so I attended a really interesting talk about how we need to be using each other's experiences and be building on those experiences as there is a lot of renewable energy projects and climate projects going on in the African continent that are just kept in the pipeline because one of the reasons is the financial institutions and the developers are not communicating well enough, so there is a massive mystery over project finance and so that needs to demystifying and people need educating on how to get these projects into fruition.
Also a massive drive for the phasing out of fossil fuels; we are only seven years away from the deadline from Paris Agreement of 2030 so we need to use the science behind the Paris Agreement and the reasons for reducing fossil fuels and making sure that people know these need to be shared more widely.
In the four days, so from day five COP28 has mobilised over US$57 billion across the entire climate agenda which was incredible to witness. We also saw Kenya's President Ruto committing to one trillion dirhams, which divide by three it is probably just over US$300,000, towards their climate agenda.
Day six was about, there were themes with indigenous people so we saw a lot of indigenous communities coming together and presenting their views and their half of the conversation and then day seven, yesterday, we saw the political negotiations come to a close. Obviously we know that they are still going on at the moment but the parties celebrated progress on the loss of damage fund including operationalising the fund and agreeing a host for the Santiago network which provides technical knowledge and support to developing countries.
I think a lot of the good news has been outweighed by frustration to be honest, because there has been a lot of talk and a lot of agreement but still not a lot of action and there has been a complete failure of the parties to reach any agreement on transparency and a pillar of the Paris Agreement was retaining transparency and creating transparency between everyone; there also needs to be a building of trust between competitors in the market, but the buzz in Dubai has been, honestly it has been electric. Everyone has been talking about it; there is all the billboards up and down the roads are probably very much on purpose, all about renewable energy projects, all about how companies are being sustainable, even fashion companies, how they are reducing their carbon emissions, and yes it has been amazing, it has been really really good.
Today I was not, unfortunately I was not at the site today but I will be back there tomorrow so I have not done my LinkedIn post yet but it is coming.
Nick: Thanks Bella, that is a great overview of what has been going on just in the first week; it sounds very busy and I have been following your LinkedIn posts with great interest.
The appointment of Dubai as host of COP28 has been quite controversial in some circles and especially the appointment of Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as president of COP28, but is Dubai's reputation as a big bad polluter fair? Is there another side to this argument?
Isabelle: 100%. Obviously I am very biased. I have lived in Dubai for the last 24 years so I actually grew up here and I have seen incredible change and incredible development and yes that has come with its costs but also there is a lot of sustainability in Dubai and within the UAE that not a lot of people know, so for example Burj Khalifa, I think everyone knows virtually the tallest building in the world; from the top ten landmarks in the world Burj Khalifa is actually the cheapest to light. There is also solar panels all over Burj Khalifa along the bottom sections and as you get close up to the top, the top most surface area, but there is a total of 378 solar panels on Burj Khalifa which are used to heat more than 140,000 litres of water every seven hours and also there has been loads of laws passed where, for example, in 2015 there was a law that was passed that in the emirate of Dubai any new building has to have 75% of their water usage heated by solar powered water heaters.
We have got two of the largest solar farms here in the UAE. We have got Noor Abu Dhabi solar plant which is the world's largest single site power plant and provides 90,000 homes with 1.17 gigawatts of power. We have also got Mohammed bin Rachid Al Maktoum solar park in the UAE which is the largest in the world and the current capacity is 1.63 gigawatts of power trying to grow to 5 gigawatts by 2030, but it is all part of the UAE's 2050 plan to reduce their emissions and produce 75% of Dubai's energy requirements from clean and renewable sources.
So there is a lot of hidden ... it is all on Google but a lot of people do not know and for Dr Sultan Al Jaber he may be, you know, the CEO of ADNOC, he is also the CEO of Masdar which is one of the sustainable cities in Abu Dhabi and there has been a lot of talk on oh he is using it for oil deals and, ADNOC do not need COP28 to, you know, to push their agenda, you know they can sell enough oil with COP28 so I think there has been a real unfair view from especially western countries on his presidency of COP28, but that is only obviously my personal view. But I think you need the leaders of these oil companies to be part of the change and leading the change to make it worthwhile and make long lasting change, otherwise you are not going to see it. You need to change mindsets from grass roots but you can only create change through, like political change through the leaders.
Nick: Absolutely, thanks Bella.
We are very lucky on this panel because Graham, in your previous career you were involved in negotiations behind the scenes at COP and you have attended four COPs to date. Can you tell us a bit about what goes on behind all the razzmatazz and the leader speeches that we see on the news and what we do not see on the TV and in the newspapers?
Graham Reeder: Sure, so yes, for a bit of background about ... about a decade ago now which it is hard to believe, I was attending COPs in support of a few developing country delegations and doing negotiation support and there was a couple of things that I think from the news, we have been, certainly I have noticed we have been bombarded with announcements from COP28 which is some of them really excellent announcements and it was great news. A lot of them about bilateral or even multilateral agreements that actually are not related to the UNFCCC. They are not related to negotiating text on the table and so that is an interesting thing, COPs have become kind of the launch pad for bilateral or multilateral agreements or unilateral agreements, negotiations, announcements.
It is where the world comes to make their announcements about climate targets. It is also a space of international legal negotiation, so this first week has been the space where, and to be candid as well, the whole year running negotiations are happening, they do not just happen in a two week period at the end of November. We would not get very far with just that, but parties are meeting throughout the year, usually in Bonn, Germany, where the secretariat is hosted, and trying to make progress on draft text and pieces of agreement and figuring out what is even on the agenda at COP, and then this whole first week has been a series of working groups on a variety of different topics where parties are putting forward their proposed language. So we have got, now at the end of the first week, we have got draft text on a whole slew of different topics, we call them chair's texts. They get forwarded to the plenary and the plenary is all parties that have to come to agreement on final text.
So the second seek we are kind of pivoting to the negotiation element, everyone has put what they want on the table but now in order to come to agreement you have got to do some horse trading, you have got to say well we will lose that request if you can move on this. So on most topics we have draft text and that is good news. So the chair of COP at the end of the week said, you know, we are making good progress on these. His focus is going to be on high level talks, getting key players in the room with one another, to hammer out the real sticking points and it seems like the real sticking points are not particularly surprising but the Global Stocktake is the big one, it is the kind of big deadline for this COP. The maybe more surprising one is that there has not been any progress really on the Global Adaptation Goal and we can talk more about that later but there is no agreed text to work from yet, so that is a bad sign at this stage of the negotiations for that topic and so we will have to see what happens coming from there.
Nick: Thanks Graham, and as I said earlier there is still a lot of frustration that there is a lot of talk but no action and Greta Thunberg last week before the start said that COP is a load of "blah blah blah". Is she right? Do you think the public are losing interest and faith in COP?
Graham: I think yes and no. I think it is absolutely a fair criticism that there is a lot of talk at COPs and COPs are maybe not where ambition for climate action happens. Ambition for climate action happens at home in every home country. COPs are where you can set the standard of where the international community is and hopefully push it forward a little bit but it is not going to be the place where climate change is solved.
It is however, I think a lot of people often I think there are a few good examples and I am happy to share that, of institutions or programmes that have been agreed to at COPs past that have been really significant in terms of climate change, that could not just be domestic, that one country could not do on their own. So anyone who works in forestry will know about REDD+, which is the Reduction of Emissions through Deforestation and forest Degradation. REDD+ is essentially a market framework where developing countries that have large forest stocks can get credit for avoiding deforestation and preventing deforestation and they in turn get finance from developed countries who are looking for emissions reductions credit; they get finance to help preserve those forests. So it is estimate at about 11 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent have been avoided through REDD in the last 15 years or so, so that is a pretty significant thing, that cannot exist without an international cooperation, one country cannot implement that and that was borne out of climate negotiations.
The clean development mechanism was a product of the Kyoto Protocol and that was where developed countries, particularly Kyoto Protocol members, developed countries, so Canada, the EU, Japan, New Zealand, Australia could get credits for their emissions reductions by funding emissions reduction projects in the developing world because they could get way better bang for their buck and reduce emissions faster by helping sustainable development in the global south than they could by reducing emissions at home, which they still had to do under the Kyoto Protocol, but this was a funding market mechanism that helped facilitate that. Again that would not exist without the UNFCCC so while it is fair to say, absolutely fair to say that the COP process is not keeping pace of the scale of climate change as a crisis, it is not fair to say that it accomplishes nothing; it certainly, we would be in a much worse place without it arguably.
Nick: That is a fair point and I think one of the major accomplishments of COP27 last year was the establishment of a loss and damage fund which you have both touched upon. This will be a fund which will pay out to nations affected by climate change and while there is still a lot to be resolved including the eligibility for pay-outs and when these pay-outs will start, the President of COP28 was keen to get the ball rolling from day one of COP28 and urged nations to start pledging to this fund. The UAE has pledged $100 million to the fund, the UK has pledged $47 million, Canada has pledged approximately $12.5 million and the US has pledged $17.5 million.
Maram, should we have expected more from the US or are John Kerry's hands tied in this respect?
Maram T Salaheldin: There is always the question with the US when it comes to these agreements. For what it is worth I was actually just reading this morning that some outlets are reporting actually an additional $7 million to other mechanisms related to the legal fund. I have not gotten confirmation of that but even if we split the difference and say about $20 million from the US you will certainly get answers on both ends of the spectrum right, so a lot of pressure from the international community and even back home here from a lot of the environmental advocates and groups pushing for the US to do more and pay more, as one of the top two emitters along with China right in the world, and we all know that conversation has been going on a long time but to answer your other part of your question, you know as far as John Kerry's hands being tied, yes there are some limitations and going back to what Graham was talking about, you know some of the conversations and pre-planning and efforts that are going on domestically in a lot of countries, some of those challenges that the US is going through. You know, looking at Congress, we have got a divide right in the upper house and the lower house; we have got the Senate with a Democratic majority, and a House of Representatives with a Republican majority, so there is definitely a push and pull there as far as what the US Congress is able to do.
But I also think it is a little bit unfair because when we look at just that one fund maybe the number is not as high as we would like but the amount of investment that the US government has been putting into climate change efforts, both domestically and internationally is pretty great. You know on the federal level we are looking at significant investments into a series of bills that have been passed in the past few years, The Inflation Reduction Act, The CHIPS Act, The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, heavy heavy investment into climate tech and clean energy as well as at COP we saw Vice President Harris's announcement of some major major commitments into the billions of dollars by the US government, both at home and abroad including payment into the, or commitments into the global climate action across the board.
So I think there is a lot going on, there is definitely some limitations and going back to your discussion of the loss and damage fund, you know, earlier this year while testifying before Congress one of the rare kind of calm, in-agreement moments between the panel and Mr. Kerry was where he said very very strongly that the US would not pay any sort of climate reparations right, that is the big sentiment, that is the big feeling. When it comes to the loss and damage fund that means things like how it is structured, and we have heard a little bit about that and I am sure Bella will have some more insights from her time there. There is a big push by the US and many other governments for this to be a voluntary effort, it is not a reparation system, it is really a contribution by the global north to support the efforts by the global south and to undo some of the damage that is happening there.
So I do think in that regard there is some limitation as far as what that amount of money would look like because if you start tying it to the magnitude of harm and sort of claiming it as a reparation system, I do not think that would have passed muster here in the US as far as getting that funding approved. And in fact even the commitments that are being made already now by the US delegations and their delegates, we will have to see what happens right, this is ultimately the post-COP time is arguably even more important in many ways, where we see everyone go back to their home countries and figure out if they can actually implement the commitments right? In our case, can we get the funding approved right, can it make its way through Congress to get that funding approved to stand up those commitments?
Nick: I understand that there is a key agreement in the US right now that you are trying to work on to reduce methane emissions. Are you able to tell us a bit more about that? Is that anywhere closer to reaching agreement?
Maram: Yes, so there was a big development, it was announced at COP just this week. So it is a final rulemaking by the EPA, we will have to see if there are legal challenges to it, it is a mammoth law, I mean we are talking about I think a thousand plus pages, lots of information. It is a big development in the US, it is the first time that EPA has placed nationwide limits on existing sources in the oil and gas sector. Methane, I think as we all know and presumably if you are on this webinar you are interested in it and know enough about the role of methane in climate change, but it is a significant contributor to climate change. In the US context that is a big part of the negotiations on the international stage, so one of the big things which John Kerry has been working on is bilateral relations with China related to climate change. We know a lot of the progress has stalled with regards to trade issues but on climate we are able to see some progress there and some compromising. Putting it in a very very summarised version right, we know the US and a lot of international communities are pushing for China to move away from coal, the flipside of that is there is a lot of pressure for the US to move away from natural gas right. We have already moved away from coal but then going to natural gas which is a major emitter of methane and so this rule is targeting that, I think it is part of this global compromise and attempt by the US to make progress towards meetings its reduction targets and to live up to its international commitments. We will see how the implementation of it goes. I know there are a lot of concerns, some of them were addressed between the proposed rule stage and now at the final rule. I know many of us in the environmental law field are still digging through the rule and trying to see what the details look like and like I said at the beginning, there are likely to be some legal challenges, we will see what that looks like, but if all goes to plan and we are looking at some 80% reduction in methane emissions over the next 15 years, which would go certainly a long way towards meeting the US's targets.
Nick: And the main focus from a financing perspective that we have talked quite a bit about, is the loss and damage fund; but another fund to keep an eye on at COP28 is the adaptation fund. It has not been so prominent in the media but it is key to reducing emissions and achieving the targets set out in the Paris Agreement. Graham, are you able to tell us a bit more about adaptation and what this fund is seeking to achieve?
Graham: Sure, so the adaptation fund came out of the Cancun Adaptation Framework which was about ten years and that was at my first COP, that was in 2010, and it is part of a kind of adaptation package and that is what started the work on loss and damage as well, it is what created the adaptation committee so all of these frameworks are kind on reaching maturity now that they have been around for a decade. And I think it is a bit of a cautionary tale in terms of this loss and damage fund was that we, the international community set up the adaptation fund and saw lots of pledges. Adaptation, so in the UNFCCC lingo there is a stark divide between mitigation and adaptation and it is different than how we, even in the environmental law world, use those terms. Mitigation is strictly about reducing emissions. Adaptation has nothing to do with reducing emissions and is just about adapting to climate impacts so the idea of mitigating climate impacts that we talk about all the time in environmental communities, does not work in the UNFCCC world, you are adapting to climate change impacts.
So the fund was created but there has not been the funding allocated to the fund necessary to keep up with what it was created for, so just last month we got the United Nations Environment Programme released their Adaptation Gap report that was commission by COP and that was to look at what are the kind of active pipeline projects, what are the adaptation needs of countries around the world and what does the funding situation look like and what they found was there are $400 million worth of projects that are in the pipeline ready to go that are not funded and so this is adaptation that could start tomorrow that is not happening because there is not the funding for it and also that the needs of adaptation overall globally are about 10-18 times higher than what is being funded. So meanwhile we have got a situation where funding for adaptation in the last few years has actually declined by 15% despite pledges and commitments made by countries, so it is now only the global funding for climate adaptation in 2021 was 21 billion which is, the expected need is about 194 to 366 billion per year. So we are talking big amounts of money but adaptation is expensive and this is related to climate finance more generally because adaptation is expensive but is less expensive than loss and damage and it is more expensive than mitigation, so funding emissions reduction is the cheapest way to address climate change. If you fail to do that you wind up in adaptation which is more expensive and if you fail to do that you end up with loss and damage which is even more expensive. So there is a bit of a concern that we are passing the buck on to future funds; all three are needed; we are in a situation where climate change is with us now so all three are needed but there is a question of whether we are rising to meet the needs there.
Nick: Thanks Graham and aside from these funds and the other pledges that are made by governments, the energy industry itself will be a key player to reduce emissions in order to meet the Paris Agreement targets. Bella you went to day six of COP and one of the focuses here was the energy industry and the just transition to a sustainable economy. What were the key points from the energy industry?
Isabella: Well I think, you know, the real key point I saw was the need for 43% reduction from the Paris Agreement and are we going to be able to achieve 43% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030? At this point probably not. I think, you know, we also saw the global cooling pledge as well so there were 63 countries committed to reducing cooling related emissions across all sectors, which is obviously fantastic and at least 68% by 2050 including taking specific measures to address the energy intensive refrigerants which I think is quite important. We saw, you know, a lot of talk about trying to make sure that there is a just transition and not just a transition so I went to a talk, a panel discussion actually, and one of the panel speakers, a gentleman named Charles Perry, he worked for BP up until the early 2000s and actually set up their kind of like renewable energy initiative and he was a very very interesting person to talk to and he actually said we need a sustainable revolution, so you know we had the industrial revolution of the 19th century, 18th century, then we had, you know, the electricity revolution and the technology revolution and now we need the sustainability, like the sustainable revolution. The issues that I saw arising, I mean they were not maybe said explicitly but for solar panels for example you still need to mine lithium and lithium ore is actually one of the most difficult things to mine. The machinery needed to mine lithium is super carbon intensive and you are going to countries where, you know, they have not got a Modern Slavery Act like we do in the UK and you know, you have got exploitation of people as well as the world's resources so yes we can move to renewable energy but we are still going to be extracting the earth's natural resources and so I think there also needs to be an awareness of it and not just kind of this tip of the iceberg view that we can just put loads of wind farms and solar farms and hydro power plants all over the world, and yes we do not have oil and gas or natural gas anymore, there is no coal but you know we are still mining metal and you know it is still being extracted, you are not creating a circular economy so I think, you know, there needs to be a little bit more thought that goes into that as well.
Nick: And one of the UK governments key parts to its strategy to decarbonise the economy is green hydrogen. It is hailed as a revolutionary alterative to fossil fuels and the government want to establish the UK as a world leader in its production, but the technology is still in its infancy and there is clearly a long way to go. This year just two small facilities have opened in the UK which represents just 0.1% of the 5 Gigawatts the government wants up and running by 2030.
Maram and Graham do you see the same in the US and Canada? Has green hydrogen taken off?
Maram: It looks like Graham is giving me the ladies first nod, so I will go first. Yes and I am sure we will say some of the similar things because I know, in general I mean North America accounts for a large percentage of announced projects worldwide when it comes to green hydrogen, there is some back and forth between kind of where Europe stands with it and where North America stands as far as the progress goes and I think to what you are alluding to Nick one of the big issues is really the costs associated, whether this is, you know, an emerging technology, there is immense costs prohibitions or kind of considerations related to it, being able to really take off as a viable option and so here in the US I think we have officially hit critical mass, if you will, when it comes to legislation and policies supporting the rule of clean hydrogen or green hydrogen in the US energy transition.
So I mentioned earlier The Inflation Reduction Act and a couple of other acts in the US that, you know, collectively have been estimated at something around $500 billion over the next decade towards the clean energy transition and The Inflation Reduction Act in particular is a strong incentivisor in supporting the green energy transition through its different programmes, including manufacturing credits and similar incentive programmes that help off-set that cost, but to date it is still very expensive, we have not fully reached a point where, you know, the cost effectiveness makes sense. I think we are headed towards that, there are strong efforts to get hydrogen hubs set up strategically across the US and to make it a viable option. So we will see what unfolds in the next few years. While a lot of focus on project development related to that space and ultimately the role with these hubs would be to improve the supply, right, if once we get to a point where there is a viable enough supply where the cost can go down and it can just go forward from there.
One of the concerns that I have been hearing about though related to that is you know ten years seems like a long time but it can really fly by and so thinking through you know The Inflation Reduction Act, which we are already a year or so in at this point, what happens after The Inflation Reduction Act incentives go away in 2032? So that is something that is being kind of thought about. We have got the funding for now, we hope it will get applied strategically and the industry can move quickly and get to a point where it is sustainable and viable, but the flipside of that is the concern that we do not sort of make it marketable and viable in time.
So we will see, more to come on that. I am not sure where Canada is Graham?
Graham: Yes I mean I think that we are not too far behind. The Canadian economy is dealing with, or Canadian politics is dealing with, it is currently kind of mired in kind of some nasty jurisdictional fights on climate between federal and provincial jurisdiction and hydrogen seems to be, clean hydrogen seems to be one of the few areas where all the provinces and the feds are in total lockstep and agreement that this is worthwhile. Now the question is, you know, where is the support for funding and financing projects? That being said there have been in the last few years, there have been six or seven big projects and one was just announced in Quebec that is a $4 billion green hydrogen project that will be, it is set to produce 70,000 tonnes a year of green hydrogen.
I think where Canada is, and Canada has also said we have a hydrogen strategy that set a 30% end use energy target to be coming from clean hydrogen, most of the target for that is on long haul trucking and long haul transport because that is kind of an easy win to transition that whole industry into clean hydrogen use. One of the problems Canada has and the US probably has as well is that energy here globally is it is comparatively cheap and so it is tough to make the economic case for a very expensive clean energy product. One of the ways that Canada is finding to get around that and to try to build up the infrastructure for clean hydrogen is through trade deals and export deals, so we have one with the Netherlands and one with Germany and this is particularly relevant for Europe where energy is much more expensive and especially in light of Europe's particular interest in getting away from natural gas from Ukraine, that has opened opportunities for Canadian hydrogen export to become a viable alternative to that fuel source.
Nick: Thanks Graham. And as you alluded to earlier as part of this year's COP all nations are required to assess the implementation of the Paris Agreement as part of a "Global Stocktake". The UN describes the stocktake as a process for countries and stakeholders to see where they are collectively making progress towards meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement and where they are not. The text of the stocktake is still being negotiated and it will hopefully be agreed towards the end of COP28 and the focus, as is often the case will be on commitment to phase down or phase out the use of fossil fuels and there will be a lot of eyes on how far the signatories will all agree to go on that.
I would just like to end today's webinar by carrying out our own miniature stocktake, if you like. So if you were all to rate the international progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement or where you think we need to go further how would you say we are doing? Bella I will start with you.
Isabella: In a few words, a minute or so?
Nick: In a nutshell, in a few words.
Isabella: How long have you got?
I think we have got a big big big road ahead of us. We are obviously heading in the right direction, you know this, definitely more awareness now, people are talking about it way more than they were ten years ago and definitely, you know, more than they were 20 years ago, but even in the last couple of years I have noticed a huge change. With our projects and infrastructure team here you can see that our credentials documents go slowly from oil and gas and coal plants, and now those have been phased out a few years ago, we only focussing on renewables now, which is obviously an incredible thing but in terms of the sustainable development or the UN sustainable development, 17 sustainable development goals, we have got a long long long way to go because they are all intersectional, you know, you cannot have an improvement in clean water without having an improvement in healthcare, you cannot end poverty without, you know, ending world hunger and there is a lot of, you know, crossing over of the sustainable development goals and if you just focus on one, which I think a lot of delegates are doing at COP, they are just only focusing on the things that they think are important, you are not really going to get anywhere, you need to look at things holistically and, you know, have it all under one umbrella and all come together and trust each other, speak to each other, communicate and work together.
Hopefully we can get there in time but let us see.
Nick: I think you are right and from my perspective, I think on that holistic thinking, and like you said earlier, you know, we are still going to be using fossil fuels for a very long time. Agreements would try and be made to phase down and phase out the use of fossil fuels but that will take a long time. In the meantime the technology to reduce emissions, things like carbon capture and storage and green hydrogen, is where a lot of progress should be made and you know we are seeing a lot of progress from that side. Maram over to you.
Maram Salaheldin: Those are tough comments to follow. I think I agree on a lot of those comments and for me I think there is something to be said for not letting the perfect get in the way of good— obviously that gets heavily criticised in this context, where sometimes good is not good enough right. Sowe are seeing a lot of that push and pull, but we are seeing in leaps and bounds things that just two or three COPs ago were unimaginable right? I mean, even this conversation about the things out of oil and gas right. I know there was the gradual progression from phase down to phase out of oil and gas right, and who knows, by the end of this COP that language may be stripped out, but the fact that it is being entertained, that it is being negotiated, that it is part of the conversation, and at a COP that has I believe the highest number of oil and gas industry representatives ever attending it right and do the industry is a part of the conversation. This is not a pointing the finger in an accusatory negative conversation. There is productive progress happening and productive conversations happening especially as we look at technology transitions and evolution of what is possible. One of the big announcements at COP this week was I believe about 50 oil and gas companies that get shared their emission reductions, voluntary emissions reductions targets right about 80%-90% reductions that they are looking at so there is a lot of progress happening, I think. I think it is just a matter of keeping that momentum going. Going back to the stocktaking consideration of keeping and taking stock of the different levels of progress and initiatives that are happening. So when we talk about COP, it is obviously an international focus right; we are talking very big picture. We get into the details, but it is on the international arena. From a US perspective, we have got a lot going on federally. I know that gets put in the news a lot. There is a lot going on, on the state and local levels too right so there are major initiatives even across the market or across the private sector there is a lot going on and so I think those efforts are important to keep track of things like California's climate disclosure and greenhouse gas emissions, bills that were proposed and passed in legislation this year. Very progressive legislation. New Jersey's got a gas powered vehicle ban by 2035, so we've got a lot of these different efforts going on so I think doing that stocktaking and seeing where we are as far as progress. Obviously, the numbers are what they are, and I'll defer to the experts and the scientists as far as the modelling goes and meeting the 1.5 target, but I think there is a lot to be optimistic about and we just have to keep pushing in a productive way.
Nick: We have had our first question from the audience and it might be one for you Graham to answer as part of your own stocktake. Will COP28 be remembered as a classic? Will it be a COP that we look back on as being a game changer?
Graham: Sure yeah I mean I won't repeat my colleague's comments because I share their view that if you are measuring against 1.5°C we are not doing so great. If you are measuring against how much progress we have made in these talks, could I have imaged a conversation about phasing out fossil fuels ten years ago being in the text, no I couldn't have imagined that and so we are making real progress there and I think in terms of getting to the question we have got that is a great example of what COP can accomplish so the idea I think if this is remembered, it will be remembered for success or failure on the Global Stocktake and for the creation of a Loss and Damage Fund. I don't want my warnings to about my concerns about the fund not being sufficiently funded to downplay how significant it is that on paper there was no Loss and Damage Fund even in conception until just about a year ago and in one year negotiators came ready on day 1 of the negotiations to agree to set up and institutionalise the fund. Are there flaws? Are there questions that remain? Absolutely there will be, but that I think really demonstrates what the international community can accomplish in a very short amount of time if they are rallying around and working together person to person. These are people who are negotiating. They see each other. They meet each other year round, they know each other very well. They share successes and failures and then they go back home and they fight their individual fights in their home countries as well.
So I really don't want to understate how monumental it is that that was accomplished and that it shows the potential of these talks pushing things forward in unexpected directions, in unexpected positive directions. So I am holding out hope that in terms of the final result that we get somewhere good with the Global Stocktake, but I think already the parties have accomplished something very significant in setting up that fund.
Nick: Thanks Graham and I think the key word from everyone there is optimism. There are plenty of things to be optimistic about despite all the doom and gloom that we read about. Today marks the half way point of COP28 but Gowlings are also running a webinar next Thursday at the end of COP28 which will be chaired by a partner in the London environment team and co-chair of the firm's ESG practice, Ben Stansfield . So please look out for further information on that or get in touch if you would like a link to sign up. That just leaves me to say thank you to all of our panellists today, Maram, Isabella, Graham and I hope everyone has found this evening's webinar to be worthwhile. If you do have any further questions or would like to talk with any of us I'm sure we would all be grateful and happy to talk more. At the end of the webinar you should receive a feedback form pop up and if you have the time please do fill this in. We would love to hear your thoughts on our webinar today and any ideas you have for the future but for now thank you.
Nick was joined by our three expert panellists:
Graham Reeder is an environmental lawyer based in Gowling WLG's Toronto office. Prior to law school, Graham worked with local communities to adapt to climate change in Bangladesh, Malaysia and the Maldives after graduating from the College of the Atlantic with a Bachelor in Human Ecology. Graham completed his Master of Environmental Studies at York University and was also involved in the Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic at Osgoode Hall Law School.
Isabella Parkes is a paralegal in Gowling WLG's international Projects & Infrastructure team, based in the firm's Dubai office. Isabella prepares proposals for power, water and infrastructure sector bids in the Middle East and Africa region and assists with the drafting of project and financing agreements for large-scale renewable energy, desalination and general construction projects. As part of her Bachelor's degree in Globalisation: History, Politics and Culture, Isabella conducted an independent study into the sustainability of Dubai and the importance of renewable energy in greening the economy. Before university, Isabella worked in the environmental sector as a team project manager for Emirates Marine Environment Group, translocating millions of corals in preparation for the construction of the Barakh Nuclear Energy Plant in Abu Dhabi. Isabella is currently studying for the Standard Qualifying Exam in the UK and is due to qualify as a solicitor in 2024.
Maram T. Salaheldin is an environmental lawyer based in the Washington DC office of US law firm Clark Hill. Maram counsels clients on environmental, health, safety and sustainability risks and liabilities related to the lifecycle of their operations and products, including compliance and permitting requirements, with an emphasis on periods of change. Maram also helps clients navigate potential impacts of international laws, such as EU REACH, RoHS and CSRD). She also assists clients in assessing and managing risks under certain ESG topics, including those related to environmental and sustainability claims and environmental justice. Mara helped establish and co-leads Clark Hill's ESG & Sustainability advisory practice.
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